Therevolution Russia is going through is a revolution of the entire people. The
interests of the whole people have come into irreconcilable conflict with those
of a handful of men constituting the autocratic government or backing it. The
very existence of present-day society, which is based on commodity production
and wherein the interests of the various classes and population groups are
extremely varied and conflicting, calls for the destruction of the autocracy,
the establishment of political liberty, and the open and direct expression of
the dominating classes’ interests in the organisation and administration of the
state. Bourgeois in its social and economic essence, the democratic revolution
cannot but express the needs of all bourgeois society.

However,this society, which now seems a united whole in the struggle against
the autocracy, is itself irremediably split by the chasm between capital and
labour. The people that have risen against the autocracy are not a united
people. Employers and wage-workers, the insignificant number of the rich
("the upper ten thousand”) and the tens of millions of those who toil and
own no property—these are indeed “two nations”, as was said by
a far-sighted Englishman as long ago as the first half of the
nineteenth century.[3]
The struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
stands on the order of the day throughout Europe. This struggle has long spread
to Russia as well. In present-day Russia it is not two contending forces that
form the content of the revolution, but two distinct and different social wars:
one waged within the present autocratic-feudal system, the other within the
future bourgeois-democratic system, whose birth we are already witnessing. One
is the struggle of the entire people
for freedom (the freedom of bourgeois society), for democracy, i.e., the
sovereignty of the people; the other Is the class struggle of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie for a socialist organisation of
society.

Anarduous and formidable task thus devolves on the socialists—to wage two
wars simultaneously, wars that are totally different in their nature, their
aims, and the composition of the social forces capable of playing a decisive
part in either of them. The Social-Democratic movement has explicitly set itself
this difficult task, and has definitely coped with it thanks to its having based
its entire programme on scientific socialism, i.e., Marxism, and thanks to its
having become one of the contingents of the army of world Social-Democracy,
which has verified, confirmed, explained, and developed in detail the principles
of Marxism on the basis of the experience of so many democratic and socialist
movements in the most diverse countries of Europe.

RevolutionarySocial-Democracy has long indicated and proved the bourgeois
nature of Russian democratism, ranging from the liberal-Narodnik to the
Osvobozhdeniye varieties. It has always pointed out that it is
inevitable for bourgeois democratism to be half-hearted, limited, and
narrow. For the period of the democratic revolution it has set the socialist
proletariat the task of winning the peasant masses over to its side, and,
paralysing the bourgeoisie’s instability, of smashing and crushing the
autocracy. A decisive victory of the democratic revolution is possible only in
the form of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. But the sooner this victory is achieved, and the fuller it is, the
faster and the more profoundly will fresh contradictions and a fresh class
struggle develop within the fully democratised bourgeois system. The more
completely we achieve the democratic revolution, the closer shall we approach
the tasks of the socialist revolution, the more acute and incisive will be the
proletariat’s struggle against the very foundations of bourgeois society.

TheSocial-Democrats must wage a relentless struggle against any departure from
this presentation of the revolutionary-democratic and socialist tasks of the
proletariat. It is absurd to ignore the democratic, i.e., essentially bourgeois,
nature of the present revolution, and hence it is absurd to
bring forward such slogans as the one calling for the establishment of
revolutionary communes. It is absurd and reactionary to belittle the tasks of
the proletariat’s participation— and leading participation at
that—in the democratic revolution, by shunning, for instance, the slogan
of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. It is absurd to confuse the tasks and prerequisites of a democratic
revolution with those of a socialist revolution, which, we repeat, differ both
in their nature and in the composition of the social forces taking part in them.

Itis on this last mentioned mistake that we propose to dwell in detail. The
undeveloped state of the class contradictions in the people in general, and in
the peasantry in particular, is an unavoidable phenomenon in the epoch of a
democratic revolution, which for the first time lays the foundations for a
really extensive development of capitalism. This lack of economic development
results in the survival and revival, in one form or another, of the backward
forms of a socialism which is petty-bourgeois, for it idealises reforms that do
not go beyond the framework of petty-bourgeois relation ships. The mass of the
peasants do not and cannot realise that the fullest “freedom” and
the “justest” distribution even of all the land, far from destroying
capitalism, will, on the contrary, create the conditions for a particularly
extensive and powerful development of capitalism. Whereas Social-Democracy
singles out and supports only the revolutionary-democratic substance of these
peasant aspirations, petty-bourgeois socialism elevates to a theory this
political backwardness of the peasants, confusing or jumbling together the
prerequisites and the tasks of a genuine democratic revolution with those of an
imaginary socialist revolution.

Themost striking expression of this vague petty-bourgeois ideology is the
programme, or rather draft programme, of the
“Socialist-Revolutionaries”, who made the more haste to proclaim
themselves a party, the less developed among them were the forms and
prerequisites for a party. When analysing their draft programme (see
Vperyod, No.
3[1]
)
we already had occasion to point out that the
Socialist-Revolutionaries’ views are rooted in the old Russian Narodnik ideas.
However, as the entire economic development of Russia, the entire course of
the Russian revolution, is remorsely and ruthlessly cutting the ground from
under the foundations of pure Narodism day by day and hour by hour, the
views of the Socialist-Revolutionaries inevitably tend to become
eclectic. They are trying to patch up the rents in the Narodnik ideas with
bits of fashionable opportunist “criticism” of Marxism, but this does not
make the tattered garment wear any the better. All in all, their programme
is nothing but an absolutely lifeless and self-contradictory document,
which is merely an expression of a stage in the history of Russian
socialism on the road from the Russia of serfdom to bourgeois Russia, the
road “from Narodism to Marxism This definition, which typifies a number of
more or less small streams of contemporary revolutionary thought, is also
applicable to the latest draft agrarian programme of the Polish Socialist
Party (P.S.P.), published in No. 6-8 of
Przed&whatthe;wit.[2]

Thedraft divides the agrarian programme into two parts. Part I sets forth
“reforms for the realisation of which social conditions have already
matured”; Part II—“formulates the consummation and integration of
the agrarian reforms set forth in Part I”. Part I, in its turn, is
subdivided into three sections: A) labour protection—demands for the
benefit of the agricultural proletariat; B) agrarian reforms (in the narrow
sense, or, so to say, peasant demands), and C) protection of the rural
population (self-government, etc.).

Thisprogramme takes a step towards Marxism in attempting to single out
something in the nature of a minimum from the maximum programme—then in
providing a wholly independent formulation of demands of a purely proletarian
nature; further, the preamble to the programme recognises that it is wholly
inadmissible for socialists to “flatter the proprietory instincts of the
peasant masses”. As a matter of fact, if the truth contained in this
latter proposition had been given sufficient thought and carried to its logical
conclusion, that would have inevitably resulted in a strictly Marxist
programme. The trouble is that the P.S.P. which draws its ideas just as
willingly from the fount of opportunist criticism
of Marxism is not a consistently proletarian party. “Since it has not been
proved that landed property tends to concentrate,” we read in the preamble to
the programme, “it is inconceivable to champion this form of economy with
absolute sincerity and assurance, and to convince the peasant that the small
farms will inevitably disappear.”

Thisis nothing but an echo of bourgeois political economy. Bourgeois economists
are doing their utmost to instil in the small peasant the idea that capitalism
is compatible with the well-being of the small independent farmer. That is why
they veil the general question of commodity production, the yoke of capital, and
the decline and degradation of small peasant farming by stressing the
particular question of the concentration of landed property. They shut their
eyes to the fact that large-scale production in specialised branches of
agriculture producing for the market is also developing on small and
medium-sized holdings, and that ownership of this kind is deteriorating because
of greater leasing of land, as well as under the burden of mortgages and the
pressure of usury. They obscure the indisputable fact of the technical
superiority of large-scale production in agriculture and the fall in the
peasant’s living standards in his struggle against capitalism. There is nothing
in the P.S.P. statements but a repetition of these bourgeois prejudices,
resurrected by the present-day Davids.[4]

Theunsoundness of theoretical views affects the practical programme as
well. Take Part I—the agrarian reforms in the narrow sense of the term. On
the one hand, you read in Clause 5: “The abolition of all restrictions on
the purchase of land allotments,” and in 6: “The abolition of
szarwark[5]
and obligatory cartage (compulsory services).” These are purely Marxist
minimum demands. By presenting them (especially Clause 5) the P.S.P. is making a
step forward in comparison with our Socialist-Revolutionaries, who in company
with Moskovskiye Vedomosti have a weakness for the vaunted “in
alienability of land allotments”. By presenting these demands the
P.S.P. is verging on the Marxist idea regarding the struggle against remnants of
serfdom, as the basis and content of the present-day peasant movement. Although
the P.S.P. verges on to this idea, it is far from fully and consciously
accepting it.

Themain clauses of the minimum programme under consideration read as follows:
"1) nationalisation through confiscation of the royal and state
demesnes[6]
as well as estates belonging to the clergy;
2) nationalisation of the big landed estates in the absence of direct heirs;
3) nationalisation of forests, rivers, and lakes.” These demands have all
the defects of a programme whose main demand at present is the
nationalisation of the land. So long as full political liberty
and sovereignty of the people do not exist, whilst there is no
democratic republic, it is both premature and inexpedient to
present the demand for nationalisation, since nationalisation
means transference to the state, and the present state is a police
and class state; the state of tomorrow will in any case be a class
state. As a slogan meant to lead forward towards democratisation,
this demand is quite useless, for it does not place the stress on
the peasants’ relations to the landlords (the peasants take the
land of the landlords) but on the landlords’ relations to the
state. This presentation of the question is totally wrong at a
time like the present, when the peasants are fighting in a
revolutionary way for the land, against both the landlords and the
landlords’ state. Revolutionary peasant committees for
confiscation, as instruments of confiscation—this is the
only slogan that meets the needs of such a time and promotes the
class struggle against the landlords, a struggle indissolubly
bound up with the revolutionary destruction of the landlords’
state.

Theother clauses of the agrarian minimum programme in the draft programme of
the P.S.P. are as follows:
"4) limitation of property rights, inasmuch as
they become an impediment to all improvements in agriculture, should such
improvements be considered necessary by the majority of those concerned;
...
7) nationalisation of insurance of grain crops against fire and hail, and of cattle
against epidemics;
8) legislation for state assistance in the formation of
agricultural artels and co-operatives;
9) agricultural schools.”

Theseclauses are quite in the spirit of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, or
(what amounts to the same thing) of bourgeois reformism. There is nothing
revolutionary about them. They are, of course, progressive—no one disputes
that—but progressive in the interests of property-owners. For a socialist
to advance them means nothing but flattering proprietory
instincts. To advance them is the same as demanding state aid to trusts,
cartels, syndicates, and manufacturers’ associations, which are no less
“progressive” than co-operatives, insurance, etc., in
agriculture. All this is capitalist progress. To show concern for that is not
our affair, but that of the employers, the entrepreneurs. Proletarian
socialism, as distinct from petty-bourgeois socialism, leaves it to the Counts
de Rocquigny, the land-owning Zemstvo members, etc., to take care of the
co-operatives of the landowners, big and little—and concerns itself
entirely and exclusively with wage-workers’ co-operatives for the
purpose of fighting the landowners.

Letus now consider Part II of the programme. It consists of only one point:
“Nationalisation of the big landed estates through confiscation. The
arable land and pastures thus acquired by the people must be divided up into
allotments and turned over to the landless peasants and those with small
holdings, on guaranteed long-term leases.”

Afine “consummation”, indeed! Under the guise of
“consummation and integration of agrarian reforms” a party
calling itself
socialist proposes what is by no means a socialist organisation of society, but
rather an absurd petty-bourgeois utopia. Here we have a most telling example of
complete con fusion of the democratic and the socialist revolutions, and
complete failure to understand the difference in their aims. The transfer of the
land from the landlords to the peasants may be—and in fact has in Europe
everywhere been—a component part of the democratic revolution, one of the
stages in the bourgeois revolution, but only bourgeois radicals can call it
“consummation” or “final realisation”. The
redistribution of land among the various categories of proprietors, among the various
classes of farmers, may be advantageous and necessary for the victory of
democracy, the complete eradication of all traces of serf-ownership, for raising
the living standards of the masses, accelerating the development of capitalism,
etc.; the most resolute support of a measure like that may be incumbent upon the
socialist proletariat in the epoch of a democratic revolution, but only
socialist production and not petty peasant production, can constitute a
“consummation and final realisation”. “Guaranteeing”
small-peasant leaseholds whilst commodity production and
capitalism are preserved, is nothing but a reactionary petty-bourgeois utopia.

Wesee now that the P.S.P.’s fundamental error is not peculiar to that Party
alone, is not an isolated instance or some thing fortuitous. It expresses in a
clearer and more distinct form (than the vaunted “socialisation” of
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, which they themselves are unable to understand)
the basic error of all Russian Narodism, all Russian bourgeois
liberalism and radicalism in the agrarian question, including the bourgeois
liberalism and radicalism that found expression in the discussions at the
recent (September) Zemstvo Congress in Moscow.

Thisbasic error may be expressed as follows:

Inthe presentation of immediate aims the programme of the P.S.P. is not
revolutionary. In its ultimate aims it is not socialist.

Inother words: a failure to understand the difference between a democratic
revolution and a socialist revolution leads to a failure to express the
genuinely revolutionary aspect of the democratic aims, while all the
nebulousness of the bourgeois-democratic world outlook is brought into the
socialist aims. The result is a slogan which is not revolutionary enough for a
democrat, and inexcusably confused for a socialist.

Onthe other hand, Social-Democracy’s programme meets all requirements both of
support for genuinely revolutionary democratism and the presentation of a clear
socialist aim. In the present-day peasant movement we see a struggle against
serfdom, a struggle against the landlords and the landlords’ state. We give full
support to this struggle. The only correct slogan for such support is:
confiscation through revolutionary peasant committees. What should be done with
the confiscated land is a secondary question. It is not we who will settle this
question, but the peasants. When it comes to being settled a struggle will begin
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie within the peasantry. That is why we
either leave this question open (which is so displeasing to the petty-bourgeois
projectors) or merely indicate the beginning of the road to be taken,
by demanding the return of the cut off lands[7]
(in
which unthinking people see an obstacle to the movement, despite the numerous
explanations given by the Social-Democrats).

Thereis only one way to make the agrarian reform, which is unavoidable in
present-day Russia, play a revolutionary- democratic role: it must be effected
on the revolutionary initiative of the peasants themselves, despite the
landlords and the bureaucracy, and despite the state, i.e., it must be effected
by revolutionary means. The very worst distribution of land after a reform of
this sort will be better from all standpoints than what we have at
present. And this is the road we indicate when we make our prime demand the
establishment of revolutionary peasant committees.

Butat the same time we say to the rural proletariat:
“The most radical victory of the peasants, which you must help with all
your force to achieve, will not rid you of poverty. This can be achieved only by
one means: the victory of the entire proletariat—both industrial and
agricultural— over the entire bourgeoisie and the formation of a socialist
society.”

Togetherwith the peasant proprietors, against the land lords and the landlords’
state; together with the urban proletariat, against the entire bourgeoisie and
all the peasant proprietors. Such is the slogan of the class-conscious rural
proletariat. And if the petty proprietors do not immediately accept this slogan,
or even if they refuse to accept it altogether, it will nevertheless become the
workers’ slogan, will inevitably be borne out by the entire course of the
revolution, will rid us of petty-bourgeois illusions, and will clearly and definitely
indicate to us our socialist goal.